


schrodinger's merits

by glundergun (cleardishwashers)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Light Angst, M/M, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2021-01-02 00:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/glundergun
Summary: mac gets in a car crash.





	schrodinger's merits

**Author's Note:**

> this is very unbetaed and i tried to format shit a lil out of the box(TM) so all fuckups are my own :))
> 
> cw for vomiting

“Hey, guys?” Charlie says, holding the phone away from his ear like it’s burning him. “Mac was in a car crash.”

“Oh, that fucking— Jesus  _ Christ!” _ Dennis yells, slamming his fist on the bar. “God— you tell him that the repairs for the car are coming out of  _ his _ paycheck, because—”

“Uh, he’s— he’s not on the phone right now, Dennis,” Charlie says, and Dennis suddenly remembers the Christmas when Frank crashed the Lamborghini with peculiar clarity, because Charlie sounds the exact same way as he did when he answered the phone that time—

There are certain things that Dennis doesn’t think he’ll ever forget. The first time he made Mac laugh. The first time he smoked with Mac and Charlie. The time when he banged a girl with tits almost as big as Jackie Denardo’s. Mrs. Klinsky’s nails scraping his back. His mother’s cigarette butts against his skin.  _ This. _

He can imagine what happened, can imagine the shattering glass and the screeching metal and the exploding airbags and Mac, caught in the middle of it all, powerless and—

God.

Something is rising in his throat; it could be sorrow, it could be vomit, it could be tears and he might be shedding tears unaided for the first time since forever ago and it’ll be because of Mac because Mac is—

“Charlie, what the hell are you saying?” Dee asks. Her knuckles are white on her beer bottle, and Dennis has never put any stock in the whole ‘twin telepathy’ thing but he  _ knows _ that she’s thinking the same thing, that Mac—

“He’s not doing so great,” Charlie says. “Uh. He’s hooked up to a buncha shit? And they tried calling his parents but they didn’t pick up, so…” Charlie’s eyes are darting back and forth from face to face, as if he’s waiting for one of them to say it’s all a huge joke.

“So they want us to come in,” Frank says. Frank’s voice is not meant for sympathy, or sadness, or any emotion that makes one  _ small. _ Like fear.

“How the hell are we supposed to get there?” Dennis snaps. “The stupid— he crashed the goddamn car, and—” His breaths tear through his body like a greedy kid ripping apart wrapping paper, completely, ignorantly vicious. “He—”

“Dennis!” Dee yells, her glare saturated with a certain kind of anger, the kind that starts off directed at the world and then burns so bright that it spills over and out and scorches everyone else. “Shut the  _ fuck _ up! Just for one goddamn second!”

He feels like he’s floated off his chair, even though he stood with so much force that his stool clattered backwards into the next one. “I will put my fucking  _ fist _ through your—”

“Dennis! Deandra!” Frank hollers, “get in the goddamn car!”

“Fuck you, old man, you’ve never given a shit about him—” Dennis turns on Frank, wanting to rip him limb from limb and make him feel like Mac must’ve—

Charlie’s fingers are digging into his arm. “Get in the  _ fucking _ car,” he whispers, his vicelike grip discordant with his wavering voice.

Dennis yanks his arm free and stalks out.

He ends up sitting next to Charlie in the back, and with every fucking turn they make he wonders if Mac took this route, if Mac got hit here, if Mac gave up in the five minutes between now and the phone call—

Mac probably can’t even breathe on his own right now.

What if there’s a power outage at the hospital and the machines go down? What’ll happen to him? Will he choke and gasp and fight to stay alive or will his body just—

“You  _ asshole, _ we’re here to see someone—”

“Ma’am, you need to go to the guest parking area—”

Dee turns back to face Dennis and Charlie, raising her eyebrows, and then the car doors are opening and the four of them are rushing past the moronic neon-vested idiot and the hospital lights are too bright but he needs to get to Mac’s room as soon as humanly possible. Someone says “Ronald McDonald” and snickers and Dennis has forgotten why it’s funny. The elevators are moving too slow. He needs to get there what if he’s too fucking late what if he’s missed the boat again what if—

Mac is pale and lifeless and Dennis would never in a thousand years call him  _ skinny _ until now. “That’s not— that can’t be—”

Whatever was coming up in his throat earlier turns out to be vomit, and it burns in a familiar, almost comforting way—

  
  


(because if he’s throwing up, then Mac will take care of him afterwards, feed him Advil and Gatorade and a million other branded products that won’t have half as much as an effect as Mac’s very presence, but Mac is laying in the hospital bed right now and he might not—)

and as the contents of his stomach splatter into the trash can, his sister gasps and Charlie makes a noise that sounds like a whimper had a baby with a gut punch and Frank says nothing at all. His breaths feel like he’s inhaling tiny daggers and they’re clawing through his throat and his chest and his lungs, sharp like twisted metal and broken glass. He can’t look. He can’t fucking look. He steps out into the hallway, and he thinks that Charlie follows him, but he can’t bring himself to look and check. He slumps against the wall and puts his head between his knees and does his best not to think.

He needs to go inside, because he might not ever get to see Mac—

He is Schrodinger, and Mac is the cat. Except Dennis won’t be able to take it if—

Someone is coming outside and saying his name, and the air leaves his lungs in a sudden rush that no punch could ever do, because the box is opening. The box is opening, and Mac could be—

“He’s asking for you,” Dee says. The words fit together in his skull slowly at first, and then it clicks and he jumps up like he’s been shocked.

“He’s—”

“See for yourself,” Dee says, and she’s not exactly smiling, but it’s not her usual scowl.

He steps inside, and Mac is still pale but he’s sitting up and the blankets give him the illusion of bulk. “You crashed my car,” Dennis says, because for the life of him he can’t remember how to say  _ you scared me. _

Mac sees through him

(because for a stupid guy he’s really very smart),

and he says “I’m sorry, Den,” in that  _ way _ of his, and Dennis decides that he is sick of Schrodinger.

Mac-and-Dennis  _ (yes _ they’re hyphenated they’re a unit thank you very much), have been playing Schrodinger’s game for the better part of twenty-five years. Open the box, and they could have something (wonderful, special, beautiful, precious— take your pick). Open the box and the cat could be dead (or, more likely, the cat would be alive but could tear itself to a mangled, unrecognizable mess that is never, in a thousand years, what anyone expected). Gambling has never been the strongest of Dennis’s vices, but he prays that he’s on a hot streak, because—

“I love you.”

It is not a weight off his chest— in fact, the weight gets exponentially heavier until Mac says, “I love you too,” and then everything else goes rushing away until Mac is the only thing left in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! drop me a line at @glundergun on tumblr :))


End file.
